By Omar Bah
GMC leader Mai Fatty, has called on the government to ensure that all officials implicated in the auditor general’s recent audit findings face appropriate punishment, stressing that accountability is essential to national integrity and good governance.
In a write-up shared with The Standard, Fatty said the gravitas of serious gabs in the 2021-2023 reports require corrective action, recovery of funds and sanctions against responsible officers.
He said having opened the door to public scrutiny, the government should now walk through it toward justice and institutional strengthening, ensuring that historic transparency yields tangible accountability and progressive improvement in public finance management.
Commitment to transparency
Fatty said the fact that the reports are openly shared with the media, civil society and the National Assembly, provoking widespread national conversation, critical analysi, and scrutiny by all sectors, marks a revolutionary departure from past practice.
“Previous administrations treated audit reports as classified documents. The pre-2017 era was characterised by deliberate opacity where citizens remained largely uninformed about how their resources were managed, and where questioning fiscal propriety invited grave reprisal. Audit findings, when produced at all, were not freely shared and debated openly and publicly in the media or by civil society”.
He said the Barrow government’s commitment to transparency represents a cardinal demonstration of good leadership.
“By deliberately making audit reports publicly accessible, the administration has embraced a governance philosophy rooted in the people’s right to know. This is not administrative routine. It is a conscious political will to subject executive performance to democratic scrutiny, acknowledging that sovereignty resides with citizens who deserve unvarnished information about public finance management”.
He said the government accepts that transparency invites robust, sometimes harsh examination.
“Rather than shielding itself from scrutiny, it permits hyper-criticism and adverse analysis as necessary features of democratic accountability, distinguishing mature democracy from authoritarian reflex”.
He added that the Barrow administration’s willingness to endure public criticism that audit disclosures inevitably generate, demonstrates confidence that transparency ultimately strengthens rather than weakens legitimacy.
“As The Gambia consolidates its democratic transition, the public disclosure of audit reports stands as a defining feature of the new constitutional order, proof that “Never Again” means not just political repression but also fiscal opacity”.
